Project description

Using the 2019 Global Attitudes & Trends data set from the Pew Internet & American Life website, I will answer the research question, Do perceptions about the quality of life vary by country?

The data and code book are available on the Pew website (need free account) or click on the link to download a zip file containing the R Markdown file, codebook, and data:

Download data, R Markdown, and codebook files

Measurement

To answer my research question, I used a subset of the data that included survey participants responses to the questions (Table 1).

Table 1. Questions and response options from the 2019 Global Attitudes Survey (Source: Pew Internet & American Life).
Question Variable name Response options
Gender (RECORD BY OBSERVATION) sex

1-Male

2-Female

How old were you at your last birthday? (RECORD AGE IN YEARS) age

_____ years

97-97 or older

98-Don’t know

99-Refused

All things considered, who has a better life in this country - men or women? better_gender

1-Men

2-Women

3-Same/both equally

8-Don’t know

9-Refused

Overall, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in our country today? country_satis

1-Satisfied

2-Dissatisfied

8-Don’t know

9-Refused

Now thinking about our economic situation, how would you describe the current economic situation in (survey country) – is it very good, somewhat good, somewhat bad, or very bad? econ_sit

1-Very good

2-Somewhat good

3-Somewhat bad

4-Very bad

8-Don’t know

9-Refused

Here is a ladder representing the ladder of life. Let’s suppose the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you; and the bottom, the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder do you feel you personally stand at the present time? ladder_now

0-Worst possible life

1 to 9 listed without labels

10-Best possible life

98-Don’t know

99-Refused

This paragraph might talk about about the process and statistical methods used. What happened during data management (recoding, missing value handling), which descriptive statistics and statistical tests were used, what assumptions were checked.

Results

Here is a table showing the basic descriptive statistics.

Table 2. Characteristics of 4,543 survey participants in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia (Data source: Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Survey (2019)).
Characteristic Category n (%)
Sex Male 2226 (49.0)
Female 2317 (51.0)
Who has a better life in this country Men 1745 (39.5)
Women 1478 (33.4)
Same/both equally 1198 (27.1)
Satisfied/dissatisfied with country Satisfied 965 (21.5)
Dissatisfied 3526 (78.5)
Describe economic situation country Very good 303 (6.7)
Somewhat good 1076 (23.9)
Somewhat bad 1243 (27.6)
Very bad 1875 (41.7)
Age Median (IQR) 32.0 (24.0 to 45.0)
Worst (0) to best (10) life Median (IQR) 5.0 (4.0 to 8.0)

Maybe add some text here pointing out anything interesting or unexpected in the table that the readers might want to view more closely. Also explain anything in the table that suggests how the research question might eventually be answered.

Figure 1. The distribution of by country for 4,543 participants in a 2019 Pew Internet & American Life Global Attitudes survey of people from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Figure 2. The distribution of responses about their place on the life ladder by country for 4,543 participants in a 2019 Pew Internet & American Life Global Attitudes survey of people from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Characteristics of the sample by country

There would be a paragraph here pointing out any descriptives that might be of interest or useful in helping to answer the research question. You could do this in a paragraph or, if there are several things to point out, maybe a bulleted list would be useful.

  • This is a first-level bullet point about something you found

    • Here is a second level bullet point related to the point above

    • Here is another second level bullet point related to the point above

  • This is another first-level bullet point about something you found

    • Here is a second level bullet point related to the point above

Visualizing the relationships between country and quality of life

Figure 3. Satisfaction with how things are going by country according to 4,543 participants in a 2019 Pew Internet & American Life Global Attitudes survey of people from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Figure 4. Life ladder by country for 4,543 participants in a 2019 Pew Internet & American Life Global Attitudes survey of people from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Figure 5. Who has a better life by country according to 4,543 participants in a 2019 Pew Internet & American Life Global Attitudes survey of people from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Add some text about each of the figures, pointing out interesting patterns or information that is relevant to the project research question.

Discussion

After all the methods and results, you would usually summarize the key points from your analyses and add some context by connecting your results to published evidence relevant to your work. Here is where you might add citations. More discussion of the findings that cite some of the literature in this area (Lin et al. 2020). Another statement about the literature and citing it goes here (Peng et al. 2016).

References

Lin, Yen-Huai, Hsi-Chung Chen, Nai-Wei Hsu, and Pesus Chou. 2020. “Validation of Global Self-Rated Health and Happiness Measures Among Older People in the Yilan Study, Taiwan.” Frontiers in Public Health 8 (July). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00346.
Peng, Yi-Fan, Jia-Hong Tang, Yang-chih Fu, I-chun Fan, Maw-Kae Hor, and Ta-Chien Chan. 2016. “Analyzing Personal Happiness from Global Survey and Weather Data: A Geospatial Approach.” Edited by Dongmei Li. PLOS ONE 11 (4): e0153638. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153638.